Graduation Year

Document Type

Degree

Degree Name

Degree Granting Department

Major Professor

Committee Member

David J. Drobes, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Joel K. Thompson, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Geoffrey F. Potts, Ph.D.

Keywords

attentional bias, cigarettes, eye-tracking, food

Abstract

Background: Cross-sectional and experimental research has shown that female smokers more frequently report using cigarettes to control negative affect, manage dietary restraint, and suppress body image dissatisfaction. However, there has been little research to identify cognitive mechanisms that may underlie these effects. Cross-stimulus attentional bias is one such mechanism.

Results: Effects counter to the hypotheses were observed, as in-vivo cigarettes and snack foods did not cause participants to differentially attend to pictorial smoking or food stimuli. Initial and maintained attention to smoking pictorial cues was greater than attention to food and neutral cues only when participants were administered a non-appetitive in-vivo stimulus. None of the theoretically hypothesized personality characteristics served as predictors or moderators of attentional bias.

Discussion: Findings with the neutral in-vivo stimulus replicate and extend previous research identifying attentional bias for smoking cues among smokers. Results also enhance understanding of how attentional bias may change when smokers encounter other types of appetitive stimuli. These findings encourage further theoretical and clinical exploration of how the relationship between motivation and attentional bias can be conceptualized and translated from the laboratory to the natural environment.

Scholar Commons Citation

Correa, John Bernard, "An Experimental Evaluation of the Relationship Between In-Vivo Stimuli and Attentional Bias to Smoking and Food Cues Among Female Smokers" (2015). Graduate Theses and Dissertations.http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/5670